Sunday, January 20, 2013

Race report: PF Changs Rock and Roll Arizona Half

Of course, this race report begs the obvious question: why Phoenix?
Especially since this wasn't a "goal race" for me -- usually people
don't go to the trouble of flying to the other end of the country for a race
unless that race is the peak of their season. Well, there were a couple
reasons.

1) I live in Washington DC. This was Inauguration weekend, where DC
gets overrun by the patriotic and the touronistic, with substantial overlap
between the two groups. It's hard to get around; it's difficult to run or
to train. Getting out of Dodge City for the weekend was
really appealing (and no, this decision was made in September, pre-election, and
had nothing to do with which candidate was being inaugurated).

2) My friend Madeline was looking for a January marathon to run. I've
always had a bit of a fascination with this race (I don't know quite why), and
I've heard it's very well run, so I suggested this marathon to her. Which
meant that if I ran the half we could be roommates.

3) Though I haven't run a marathon yet, I'm assuming that I'll run more than
one in my lifetime. And/or that I'll want to run other goal races in
other places far away. At some point, I'm going to have to fly to a goal
race in another time zone. So why not go through the exercise of traveling
by plane to the other side of a country for a race that wasn't an "A
race," to get the kinks out. I'd get a feel for how close I could
schedule a plane flight to a race, and figure out exactly how to pack.

[and yes, I'm not new to traveling - there are times in my life when I've
lived out of a suitcase. Heck, as a teenager I flew back and forth
between DC and Florida every weekend in the winter to compete in the horse show
circuit down there. But traveling to a running race raises its own
separate issues.]

Of course, all of this stuff about "just doing it to get out of DC and
practice traveling to a race" didn't mean I wasn't racing it.
Absolutely, this was a race, not a training run, and I'd be running the best
race I had in me (caveat:early in the training cycle, not in top shape, etc
etc).

Packing light

And so, I schlepped out to the other side of the country. For your
information, I did pack efficiently while managing to still get all the
essentials out there.No need to check
luggage (the secret is to ship yourself a care package ahead of time).

The flight itself, though completely uneventful, wasn’t fun.I’ve been fighting a head cold.Even at its worst, it hasn’t been horrible,
but it’s one of those things that’s taking forever to clear up completely –
just a bit of sluggishness that won’t let go.Between the quick mile pick-up I did on Friday morning followed by the 5
hour plane trip, I experienced a bit of a relapse (in retrospect, I should have
just slept in on Friday morning).

My stash.

But then I landed and had a bit less than 48 hours to try to clear it up
with rest, fluids, zinc (my friend Madeline ended up skipping the trip, which
was sad, but also meant that I had a private room to wallow in – silver linings).I shambled through the local CVS to acquire
the necessary goods and slept a ton, and by Saturday evening I was feeling a
lot better.

Sunday morning was simultaneously early and not.I left my hotel room at 5:30 am to get to the
race – granted, the race didn’t start until7:50 am, but I was relying on public
transportation in a strange city to get to the start, and I didn’t want to risk
anything.Additionally, I had paid out
$50 for a “warm zone” – I got a special pass to a heated indoor area close to
the race start, complete with its own set of bathrooms.So no reason not to get there early and just
chill in the warm zone, so to speak.Plus
5:30 am local time was 7:30 am my time, so not so early after all.

I hung out in the supa-speshull warm zone until around 7:10 am and then
checked my bag and did my 2 mile jog.Then
a few drills, 1-2 strides, and squeezed into my corral. National Anthem,
wheelchair racers, and then we were go.

One of my big goals here was simply to pace the race well.When I’m racing regularly, I’m pretty good at
pacing, especially at executing my coach’s start slow/finish fast methodology
(is that copyrighted yet, BTW?).But
when I take time off, I lose some of my feel.Since starting workouts and races again last month, I’ve been going out
a smidgen too fast in many of my workouts, and my New Year’s Eve 10K race was
poorly executed, if I do say so myself.Dammit,
I was going to run this race patiently.Pace
well or else.And I did.Yay me.

The race course itself can be divided into two parts.The first 8 miles were pretty nondescript –
we started on ASU’s campus and ran through that for a mile, and then through
what seemed like an endless sequence of strip malls and gas stations, with very
few turns.It was boring if you’re into
scenery.Fortunately, I’m not into
scenery.

The “strip mall” segment was essentially flat, but with some very very slight incline
changes that I actually welcomed – I believe that perfectly flat courses can
tire one out simply from using the exact same muscles, while very slight shifts
make the course faster.This course had
just enough slight variation to keep things fresh.

But, other than that, boring.I didn’t
talk much to other people – to be frank, my head was hurting slightly.Not horrible, but I wasn’t particularly
chatty.My one bit of excitement came when
I reached for a GU at around mile 6.5, opened it, and dropped it.Fortunately, this is why I always run with
many more GUs then I expect to use.

I was REALLY mindful of my hydration in this race.Plane flight= dehydration.Mild bug=dehydration.Desert climate=dehydration.So I ran with a handheld water bottle, using
each mile marker as a cue to sip, even if I wasn’t thirsty.Around mile 8, my handheld was drained.And this, fortunately was right where some
unofficial group was handing out unopened water bottles – like rain from the desert
gods.I barked thanks and grabbed one.

After 8-9 miles of Targets and Circle Ks and the occasional cacti, we turned
into a park.And this is when the course
got pretty cool.We were climbing up the
only real incline change (for DCrunners, it was a climb similar to the Capital Crescent trail, so not
severe at all) with rust-colored-dust and boulders and palm trees and BIG cacti
to each side.I got flash backs to the
Wild West section of Disney World.We
kept pressing upwards (I was starting to up the effort here), and then turned
into a nice gentle decline that I was able to ride.The last 4 miles or so of the course were the
most fun.I was passing person after
person, while gliding through some really cool scenery (OK, I’m sometimes into
scenery.But it has to be the right kind
of scenery).

I’m actually a bit disappointed that I wasn’t able to pick it up more in
this section – I think if I was in peak shape, I could have blasted this.But 13 miles was seeming like a really long
way to run – my stamina just wasn’t quite up to its norm.Which is fine – it’s early in the training
cycle yet.

So, rolled to the finish, working to stay relaxed and fluid and focused.By the 20K mark, I was DONE, but successfully
held my form and my focus all the way to the finish.The finish of the half was combined with the
finish for the “mini marathon” (5.4 miles), which meant that there were walkers
to deal with, but they were encouraged VERY STRONGLY to stay to one side, and
there was little issue here.

Stayed at the Hilton Garden Inn by the airport,
and it worked well.The hotel was about
an 8 minute walk from the “Metro light rail” which took me right to the Expo
and also to the race start/finish.I was
able to finish my race at 9:20, and be through security and at the gate for my
flight by 11:30 (and yes, I showered).I
didn’t rent a car, but I think I will in the future; taking public
transportation had me on my feet a bit more than was optimal for the days
before a race.Especially when I wanted
to spend a decent portion of Saturday napping, not waiting for trains on a 20
minute schedule.

Ended up within a few seconds of my
half-marathon PR, which is kinda meh.My
half-marathon PR is weak, I think (though the fact that I’ve attempted 3 halves
since without breaking it belies that fact).Someday I will run a half marathon in great weather when I’m in shape
and not fighting off something.Someday.

Ran this one in my trainers, not my flats.Perhaps I gave up a bit of time in doing so –
I’ve run all my previous halves in the Saucony A4/A5, which is a very light
shoe.But I’m also thinking that the
stresses of racing in those very light shoes, when combined with the stresses
of marathon training, may have been one of the factors that contributed to my recent
bout of plantar fasciitis.If I’m going to
race in my flats, I need a bit more post-race recovery time than I’ll get
during marathon training.So flats get
saved for periods of time when I’m focusing on shorter distances; until I
complete my marathon in mid-March, I’ll be wearing my Kinvaras (what I intend
to run the marathon in) for everything.

As I wrote above, the flight wore me out.Though I’m sure a large part of that was the
remnants of my bug, I also know that flying in general tires me.Note for the future: if I fly to a marathon,
I need to fly in two days before, and three might be even better.

Was worried that the super dry air might
aggravate my asthma – usually it’s high humidity that does me in, but super dry
air gets me every once in a while.Nope,
absolutely no breathing issues here.

Very nice splits, even if there are just off where you wanted to be. Hopefully this will be good confidence boost heading into the rest of the training cycle. Yes, you obviously wanted to PR, but coming so close with all those factors against you is impressive. I was more excited about just missing my 5k PR a few weeks ago than I've been about some PRs. I guess it's all in your expectations.

Full slew of race reports here (from my first in June 2007 to 2010) and here (2011).

workouts

(you can click on the link to see the details)

Pool running conversion

I convert my pool-running into “mileage” with this formula:

1)10 minutes “easy” in the pool equals one mile

2)workouts translate by time into mileage, with the recoveries not counting for mileage.For example, I would normally cover half a mile in 3:00 during an interval workout, and 1.5 miles in 10:00 during a tempo.So 8x3:00 at interval effort is 4 miles, and 10 minutes at tempo effort is 1.5 miles.